The initial spark for this series of experiments and articles came from discussions regarding a class that I have been teaching for the Roasters Guild. The essence of the class is that it is the job of the coffee roaster to shape roast development to accentuate a coffee's positive attributes.

Like many people, I've long thought of cocoa and coffee as being fairly similar; both are complex flavor-wise, both are grown in the tropics (one at low elevation, the other high) and both are seeds that need roasting before consumption. But I didn't know much about chocolate production until I met Robbie Stout of Ritual Chocolate in Denver, CO who gave me a tour of his facility and explained a bit about the cocoa roasting process and making chocolate.